Riddle Machines: The History and Nature of Interactive Fiction
By Nick Montfort | From: A Companion to Digital Literary Studies
Montfort is a professor of digital media at MIT - former student of Robert Pinsky (Mindwheel).
Summary:
The article is an overview of text-based interactive fictions (IF) that demonstrate language understanding (through parser) and some simulation of a virtual world (world model).
These works are customarily written in the second person, and the player has some opportunity to use dialogue to interact with non-player characters.
A medium-sized game can be completed in a few hours,
The games often foreground human perception, as Zainab demonstrated in her presentation on Emily Short's Galatea.
Montfort argues for classifying IF as potential narrative, with the double meaning of potential: a) Various potential outcomes depending on the player's decisions b) "Potentially" narrative - inviting a discussion of how these are like/dissimilar from traditional texts.
"While interactive fiction does not top computer game sales charts today, its return to hobbyist roots and free distribution, facilitated by the internet, has offered new space for concepts and writing that would have been far too unusual and innovative for the mass market to bear."
History:
1964-66: ELIZA: Compelling scenario for interaction, which invited users to participate
1968-70: SHRDLU: Natural language textual exchange and world model
1977: ADVENTURE: Cave-exploration game
1977-79: ZORK: First character - "the thief"! (also advances in parsing and world modeling)
1985: First Dissertation!
1980: MYSTERY HOUSE: First text-and-graphics adventure
1980s: Genres expand to mystery, science fiction, archaeological
Trend toward adapting or expanding published literary works (The Hobbit, participation of Douglas Adams in Hitchhiker series)
From the beginning, an emphasis on reader production as well as consumption which has sustained interest as consumer market expired.
"IF community": - 2016 Interactive Fiction Winners (winner that year, Detectiveland, received 80 first-place votes)
Recent trends toward short, innovative "Speed IF" texts
Influence:
Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games (World of Warcraft) are graphical versions of IFs called Multi-Player Dungeons (other characters in same story controlled by other players)
Graphical adventures, from King's Quest to Myst, built on IF norms
Conventions:
Self-made maps
"Feelies" (Brave New World) - knick-knacks to offer tactile dimension - maps, scratch and sniff stickers, glow-in-the-dark stones, etc.
Example from 1984's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
Games today almost entirely made available for free and developed using free programs
Commentary:
Montfort proposes that relating interactive fiction to the novel has proven problematic and suggests instead an analogy to riddles:
- Some authors elevated parlor amusement to compelling examination of self and world
- Expect reader response, thought, and discussion, like IF
- Expect reader to adopt and demonstrate comprehension of strange systems of a particular work
Not discussed in article: Space challenges: Zork games, for instance, equate to 30-page novellas - each option occupied precious real estate
Question:
"Hell, what's the right direction when it's 200 of us writing games and giving them only to each other?" Adam Thornton, IF writer in "Get Lamp"
Riddle Machines: The History and Nature of Interactive Fiction
By Nick Montfort | From: A Companion to Digital Literary StudiesMontfort is a professor of digital media at MIT - former student of Robert Pinsky (Mindwheel).
Summary:
The article is an overview of text-based interactive fictions (IF) that demonstrate language understanding (through parser) and some simulation of a virtual world (world model).
These works are customarily written in the second person, and the player has some opportunity to use dialogue to interact with non-player characters.
A medium-sized game can be completed in a few hours,
The games often foreground human perception, as Zainab demonstrated in her presentation on Emily Short's Galatea.
Montfort argues for classifying IF as potential narrative, with the double meaning of potential:
a) Various potential outcomes depending on the player's decisions
b) "Potentially" narrative - inviting a discussion of how these are like/dissimilar from traditional texts.
"While interactive fiction does not top computer game sales charts today, its return to hobbyist roots and free distribution, facilitated by the internet, has offered new space for concepts and writing that would have been far too unusual and innovative for the mass market to bear."
History:
1964-66: ELIZA: Compelling scenario for interaction, which invited users to participate
1968-70: SHRDLU: Natural language textual exchange and world model
1977: ADVENTURE: Cave-exploration game
1977-79: ZORK: First character - "the thief"! (also advances in parsing and world modeling)
1985: First Dissertation!
1980: MYSTERY HOUSE: First text-and-graphics adventure
1980s: Genres expand to mystery, science fiction, archaeological
Trend toward adapting or expanding published literary works (The Hobbit, participation of Douglas Adams in Hitchhiker series)
From the beginning, an emphasis on reader production as well as consumption which has sustained interest as consumer market expired.
"IF community":
- 2016 Interactive Fiction Winners (winner that year, Detectiveland, received 80 first-place votes)
Recent trends toward short, innovative "Speed IF" texts
Influence:
Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games (World of Warcraft) are graphical versions of IFs called Multi-Player Dungeons (other characters in same story controlled by other players)
Graphical adventures, from King's Quest to Myst, built on IF norms
Conventions:
Self-made maps
"Feelies" (Brave New World) - knick-knacks to offer tactile dimension - maps, scratch and sniff stickers, glow-in-the-dark stones, etc.
Example from 1984's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
Games today almost entirely made available for free and developed using free programs
Commentary:
Montfort proposes that relating interactive fiction to the novel has proven problematic and suggests instead an analogy to riddles:
- Some authors elevated parlor amusement to compelling examination of self and world
- Expect reader response, thought, and discussion, like IF
- Expect reader to adopt and demonstrate comprehension of strange systems of a particular work
Not discussed in article: Space challenges: Zork games, for instance, equate to 30-page novellas - each option occupied precious real estate
Question:
"Hell, what's the right direction when it's 200 of us writing games and giving them only to each other?" Adam Thornton, IF writer in "Get Lamp"